Wanted: research category icons

[BTAxis]

In order to spice up the research screen and to make it easier for the player to decide what research topic he wants to research next, we'd like some small icons for the research topics. The research topics can be categorized by the section of the UFOpaedia they belong in. Each of these categories should have one icon associated with it, and this icon is used for all research topics that belong to that category.

The icons should be 16x16, and should be easily distinguishable.

These are the categories in the UFOpaedia:

* Background (articles on the story of UFO:AI prior to the game's start)
* Aircraft (includes UFOs and PHALANX craft)
* Base Facilities (reports about PHALANX base facilities)
* Research Reports (general research that does not fall into any other category)
* Equipment (human weapons, devices and armour)
* Alien Artifacts (alien weapons, devices and armour)
* Autopsies & Observation (knowledge gained from examining aliens, both dead and alive)
* The Alien Threat (storyline-related research)

[Wanderer]

 Background

Aircraft

Facitilities

Generic Research

Human Equipment

Alien Equipment (I'm not real happy with this attempt at making a Kerrblade in 16 pixels, but it's the best I got out of about 12 attempts...)

Autopsies and observation

The Alien Threat  (You got me on this one... the Nuclear option as the final last defense seemed appropriate)

I have crisper images then these in bmp format, I need to convert to png (jpg is losing to much), just didn't get a chance and wanted a first glance opinion on them.

[Winter]

 Background

Aircraft

Facitilities

Generic Research

Human Equipment

Alien Equipment (I'm not real happy with this attempt at making a Kerrblade in 16 pixels, but it's the best I got out of about 12 attempts...)

Autopsies and observation

The Alien Threat  (You got me on this one... the Nuclear option as the final last defense seemed appropriate)

I have crisper images then these in bmp format, I need to convert to png (jpg is losing to much), just didn't get a chance and wanted a first glance opinion on them.

I like some of those, and we can use them as placeholders, but I'm going to take a stab at making a few myself as soon as I get my hands on a GIMP-capable machine again. Should be sometime next week or the week after. I'll try and brush up the whole lot as well.

For some feedback: pink is not the best background colour, and the kerrblade is not the best iconic item choice. Try a plasma weapon, or just a generic green-glowy item.

Regards,
Winter

[Wanderer]

For some feedback: pink is not the best background colour, and the kerrblade is not the best iconic item choice. Try a plasma weapon, or just a generic green-glowy item.

Regards,
Winter

Fair nuff. Used PNG and cleaned 'em up a hair (and changed the alien one...)

Background

Aircraft

Facitilities

Generic Research

Human Equipment

Alien Equipment

Autopsies and observation

The Alien Threat

(And BAH!... BBCode can't stretch the image to see it better.)

[BTAxis]

About the alien one, can you try making it a little "grey" head? I think that fits a lot better than a little stick figure.

[Wanderer]

About the alien one, can you try making it a little "grey" head? I think that fits a lot better than a little stick figure.

I'll give it a go.

[EDIT]

Try this one:

[Blywulf]

Ok, here's my attempt.



I admit it was a quickie job and, obviously there are some icons missing.

Anyway, I'm off to work... so, see you guys in 2 weeks time.

[BTAxis]

Try this one:

I played with this a bit because the eyes didn't come across. I also changed the shape of the head a little and removed the nose:

I think maybe the eyes would look better black.

[BTAxis]

Ok, here's my attempt.

(img)

I admit it was a quickie job and, obviously there are some icons missing.

Anyway, I'm off to work... so, see you guys in 2 weeks time.

That looks really good. But yes, we'd really need you to do the whole set if we're going with this style.

[Wanderer]

Ok, here's my attempt.

Pretty.  This is why I stick to mapping... XD  

Though I'd find them hard to figure out easily at 'first glance'. IE: You've really gotta stare at Alien and Human technology to see the difference.... which defeats the point of a 'quick icon' for reference.  Not sure if you'd lose the niceness of the images by using slightly different shades, or colors, or something that helps the image stand out?

I played with this a bit because the eyes didn't come across. I also changed the shape of the head a little and removed the nose:
 
I think maybe the eyes would look better black.

Works for me... Mine kind of looked like a frog in headlights and couldn't figure out how to get the pupils across... ignoring them outright worked well.

Since Bly's leaving for 2 weeks, I wouldn't be insulted if my icons are placeholders until Blywolf can produce a 'final, polished, finished' set, BTAxis.  I just wanted to take a stab at it.  I already know Graphic Art and me have a long way to go before what I produce is better then average.

[Zenerka]

Wanderer, that would be great. But could you, please, prepare the buttons in the format similar to this?
If I would have such file I could do needed code to enable it. And if new/better icons will come one day, it would be just a matter of replacing one file.

[Wanderer]

Wanderer, that would be great. But could you, please, prepare the buttons in the format similar to this?

I'm relatively sure the GIMP can use this filetype (TGA)... any other softwares (windows)?

[Wanderer]

Requested file type here:
http://rapidshare.com/files/35619520/ResearchIcons.tga

[Hoehrer]

I'm relatively sure the GIMP can use this filetype (TGA)... any other softwares (windows)?

Just as information for all of you: Yes The GIMP can handle tga files, but...
The current stable version of GIMP (2.2) sometimes has problems with tga files that use indexed colors (and/or a different compression i think).

The current development release (2.3 - it's quite stable already actually ) already has fixes for that though

Werner

[qubodup]

You could get some inspiration from the freeorion project. their icons are so far the best thing about the game =)

http://www.freeorion.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=26636#26636